


With Guilt On My Shoulders

by Thematic_Kane



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Cameo from The Eden Tree, Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, SkyDad!Kane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 05:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7671853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thematic_Kane/pseuds/Thematic_Kane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post S3- Abby and Marcus deal with the guilt and grief that has plagued them since their return to Arkadia. Clarke isn't coping well and isolates herself. With a little cameo from The Eden Tree, Marcus helps her realise she isn't as alone as she thought she was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Guilt On My Shoulders

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first FF I've written in years, It's good to be back.  
> Major thanks to @kane-and-abby on Tumblr, for the wise words of guidance and staying up til 5am editing this for me.  
> She is simply the best <3

Abby worries. Her mind is clogged with confusing thoughts and misshapen memories. Since being liberated from the control A.L.I.E. exercised over her, she has been consumed with worry. Her thoughts flit from Marcus to Clarke, surveying the rest of the dwindling population in the process. It helps to think about the others, though it doesn’t alleviate her own corroding sense of guilt, it does distract her from it. She needs the distraction on this long trek back to Arkadia.

The situation is unprecedented, every morning now she wakes with an unsettling sense of ignorance about this world. The anxiety is subtle but constant; nothing here is safe. Every moment is a gift that they are slowly learning to cherish. She begins to wonder if they’ll ever find peace, she’s tired of gathering the shrapnel of their previous society and melding it together to create something that could withstand the hardships of this earth. She wonders if they would’ve been better off had the Ark disintegrated upon entry, in a time where her outlook had not yet suffered under the corruption of the events they had lived through. Perhaps it would’ve been better to burn out brightly with purpose and a glorious sense of wonder in her heart than be consumed by this overwhelming sensation of hopelessness. A cloud sits upon them all, she is simply waiting for the rain to start. They’re broken and she’s not sure she can ever put them back together again. They look to her — she sees it in their eyes — and she cannot help but avoid their gazes. Every day represents more hardship than the day before. They are surviving she thinks, but sometimes that isn’t enough. Didn’t they come down here to live?

Marcus hasn’t said a word since they’ve set out, mutely walking beside her. His silence isn’t reassuring, in fact it’s anything but. Her eyes drift down towards the fraying bandages on his wrists, they hide the extent of his injuries well. She knows from the down-set turn of his shoulders that more than pain bothers him. Physical pain is tolerable, the moment it begins to leech inwards it becomes something more. She almost doesn’t recognise him underneath the weight of his own guilt and self-deprecation. There is no confidence in his step, he simply shuffles along beside her dutifully. Her heart aches for him and yet she empathises all the same. She too is a victim of guilt, its abuse multiplies when she looks at him, at the damage she has caused him. Logically she knows she wasn’t in control, but that does not erase the memories of standing over his body, a hand on his chest as those nails were driven into his wrists. It doesn’t erase the desire she felt so keenly to hurt him and make him bleed. She remembers the iron tang in the air and the shredding cry of his screams. She knows it wasn’t her, but that is not enough to hold the memories at bay.

Her eyes turn towards Clarke who muscles on in solidarity at the front of the convoy; Bellamy keeps a watchful eye on her from afar. She’s reminded of the cool weight of the scalpel in her hand and the ease of precision with which she thrust it into her daughter’s chest. She recalls the breathy pleas and cries that remained ignored at the time, but now they cause her to double check her every stumbling step. There is a weight on her daughter’s shoulders. Abby prays that whatever is causing her isolation won’t transmute into a pithy excuse to leave them again. She’s not sure she could bear it, not after she’s only just got her back.

Loss has etched its mark upon them all, Abby refuses to let it distinguish them, she’ll pick up the pin of the Chancellor, if it gives them time to heal. It’s the least she can do, the memories are a constant reminder of that. 

The trip back to Arkadia — as anticipated — is tedious and slow, full of many pit stops but eventually they make it. The first few days are signified with jubilation, as friends are reunited again. The threat has passed, they have become the victors of a war against an artificial intelligence and, at a much subtler level, they defeated the enemies that they had made of themselves. But that is as far as it goes. Slowly the jubilation drips away from the population, leaving nothing but an emptiness in its wake. Nobody is quite sure how to conduct themselves without A.L.I.E. whispering instructions in their ears. The resounding return to agency is strangely isolating.

Abby throws herself back into her work. Medical is overwhelmed with patients needing tending to after the collapse of the artificial empire. She’s lost count of the amount of broken bones that have been set, the bullet wounds that required stitches, and the number of incisions she’s had to administer to the back of her people’s necks.

She’s hesitant in handing out pain relief, their dwindling stock supply stares back at her. The weight of the necessary restriction threatens to crush her as she watches faces curl in pain, futile to make a difference. In that moment, she realises that although they left the Ark, the Ark would never leave them. They hadn’t escaped the confines of the required rationing of that steel trap in the sky, they had simply replaced their prison with expanses of fresh air and loamy dirt. There would always be things to bind her hands, whether they be the ties of a Grounder alliance or the shackles of required rationing. In that regard, they would remain servants to the oppressive system that ensured their survival. She didn’t have to like it, but it would be a necessity to them as it always was.

 She understands so keenly the weight of the leadership Marcus once bore and the decisions he was forced to make. Not being able to prescribe medication to someone with bullet holes in their side does not sit right with her, but they have become too invaluable an asset to waste. She hates it vehemently — when did medical supplies require replenishing at the same rate as food and water? It’s an excellent portrayal of the life that they now live. She hopes that one day that won’t be the case, but for now, she simply swallows her tongue. They live on the ground, where the threat of emergency constantly looms on the horizon, and she needs to be prepared.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jackson, flits from task to task, changing bandages, applying stitches, updating the inventory on their diminishing stock of supplies. His hands shake. He’d give anything to make them stop. He cannot bring himself to look at her, he’s sure if he did she’d turn away in disgust. There’s a self-deprecating sickness settling in his gut, it’s making him nauseous. Worst of all, he knows his feelings are not valid. He doesn’t get to feel these things, because he brought them upon himself. He was implicit in the destruction and chaos that now surrounds the bays of medical. He thought he was doing the right thing, but sometimes it isn’t that easy. The harm he caused will haunt him forever. He wants to laugh, a laugh that is tinged with macabre uncertainty. A laugh in the face of the true futility of his actions. He was supposed to help; he was supposed to be doing the right thing. Now medical is inundated with patients, seas of broken bodies — he feels sick. It was never meant to happen this way.

Growing up on the Ark taught him many things. Life was cruel and it was also short. It seemed for the majority of his childhood that something was missing, he didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the motley crew from Mecha. He was in a constant state of flux, needing something to define his life by, needing a purpose to set him apart from the other lost souls trapped in their melded piece of metal circling Earth.

Everything comes at a cost, even childhood wishes have a price. No shooting star is free. He learnt that the hard way. When the doctor gave his mother the prognosis, it felt as if all the air had been sucked out of his lungs, as if he were already spinning in the deadly vacuum of space.

To them, she was simply a number — a number consuming resources. That’s how things were on the Ark: those in charge were cold and pragmatic. Life was simply an equation to them. So many rations, so much oxygen. They wouldn’t mourn her death and, in a way, he didn’t blame them. The life they lived required sacrifice. They had to be harsh, otherwise _no-one_ would survive. He didn’t have to like it, but he did have to accept it. The niggling in the back of his mind was a constant reminder that perhaps there was a better way.

He held his mother in his arms and watched as the life left her body. That was the price he payed for purpose. Her death would not be in vain, she would encourage and motivate him and maybe then he could ensure no-one would have to pay that price again. No-one would ever have to feel the way he felt.

That ideology spurred him on — it was good for a while — but the future is not predictable. Circumstances change everything and they did. The moment he stepped onto Earth, nothing was ever the same again. They’d regaled each other with tales of the peace it would bring to humanity when they could finally return home. It was a dream.

Earth was nothing but a nightmare. Things are always better in the confines of the mind, visualised delusions of grandeur and peace. Nothing could ever live up to the expectations they had placed upon this planet. He wasn’t ready for the bloodshed, the violence, the war. He had sworn to do no harm and now nothing but harm surrounded him, his hands bathed in blood to the wrist, in an attempt to plug the wounds from a Grounder’s blade. These were all things he would never forget. Earth was unforgiving like that.

 Jaha had seen the hopelessness grow on his face day after day; he capitalised, Jackson listened. There was no pain in the City of Light. Was this the dream he had been searching for? He should’ve known it was too good to be true.

Jackson had learnt to stop dreaming. He had a duty to their people and he had failed them. He failed Abby. With sickness rising up his gullet, he recalls the carelessness with which he thrust the syringe into her neck. Watching her drop to the ground with little regard. Watching her wake, only to realise that she’s bound to a chair. Handing the scalpel to Raven as she slices it down her forearms, blood gushing to the floor. He had failed them all. He’d failed his mother, but more importantly he had _forgotten_ her. He’d forgotten the most important aspect of his life: his motivation, his purpose. Without her it was all meaningless.

He stares down at his hands, harbingers of harm, he has to swallow the price of what he’s done. He cannot live like this, avoiding her gaze forever. He yearns for her forgiveness. Remorse wells inside of him pressing against the seams, making it hard to breathe. He cannot go on pretending to be something he’s not. Pretending to bring comfort to the people when all he can see is the harm he has caused them, especially Abby. Abby who believed in him. Abby who now has bruises wrapped around her neck, because she didn’t suspect that he would be the one to betray her. He needs her forgiveness, if he can ever hope for things to return to some semblance of the way they were before. He’s not sure he deserves it, he’s not so sure it’s so easily given. The tears drip down his face before he can help it, he moves to cover himself with his arm. It doesn’t matter, she isn’t looking anyway.

Forgiveness. It’s a concept that is, unfortunately, annoyingly familiar to her. She has it in abundance, if only she knew how dire his need was to receive it. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

With the inundation of Medical, Abby hasn’t seen Marcus since the return. She captures fleeting glimpses of him, the back of his head or the flap of his jacket. She _notices_ his presence but she is yet to _see_ him.

She worries. Guilt twists in her gut as sharply as the edge of any scalpel. She wonders if he is avoiding her on purpose — does he resent her for the pain she has caused him? Once the guilt he holds over Bellamy fades, will he blame her? As much as she tries to conceal it, the emotion is plain on her face. She cannot bear the thought of him being reduced to nothing but the shell of his former self; he was the man who hatched an uprising in the face of their fascist leader, the man who inspired such hope in her, seeing him hiding behind down-set shoulders and shuffling feet with dirt on his face and greasy locks in his eyes was a physical affirmation, it showed the grief and guilt of the turmoil swirling within him.

 She thinks of him picking at the fraying ends of his bandages, his mouth downcast in a solemn frown. An ache bubbles up in her chest. He has been there for her and now she may have lost him forever. The thought is horrifying, it seizes her very being in its cold grasp until she cannot breathe.

They’ve been a team shortly after their boots scuffed the ground. She’s relied on him and he sought her out in turn. He became her constant. When things seemed as if they couldn’t get darker, when Clarke abandoned them, he was there. A soft presence standing at her shoulder, a steady voice of reassurance. He became a force that perhaps she took for granted, a force that has affected her like none before, affected her in a way that his absence now, is startling in contrast to how they used to be.

Without him, she is simply a position of responsibility, she ceases to feel like herself. With him, none of that matters. She is no longer a doctor nor a chancellor, she is allowed to be human. She is allowed to grieve with him by her side. She is simply allowed to _be_.

The distance between them now is sickening, she cannot be certain of the state his thoughts take as they flow through his mind. She cannot know that he is just as repulsed by his influenced actions as she is by hers. She does not understand that the weight of the guilt that crushes him is the same as her own. How could she when she does not feel worthy to look him in the eye?

Jackson catches her movements stilling in the middle of medical, her face awash with the agony of her thoughts. She is too easy to read. He wonders if they are all inflicted alike. Her face parallels the pain he too feels inside. He swallows it for a moment, if only he can ease her own. His mouth opens — it’s dry — he has nothing to say. He contemplates leaving, but some things need to be said.

“Kane doesn’t blame you,” he says quietly.

Abby regards him for a moment with an essence of surprise before she sighs, “How would you know?”

The question doesn’t have any bite or sting; she is genuinely curious. Kane and Jackson have never been on the best of terms, there was a grudging air of respect for the man who managed to shed the ways of his former self, but that was as far as it went.

His lip trembles slightly as he speaks, his face failing to keep his emotions at bay. He was a dam on the verge of crumbling. He managed to reply, “The same way I have to believe that you don’t blame me too, that I am capable of being forgiven.”

She’s surprised by his hesitancy but contains it well. She had misread him. She’d thought Jackson had been avoiding her, refusing her forgiveness, _wanting_ to be eaten away by the guilt multiplying inside him. She didn’t understand that he’d been yearning for the very thing he already had. He’d been desperately stepping on eggshells around her, afraid she’d revoke the only chance he’d ever have of feeling accepted and whole again. She cannot help but laugh, it bubbles in her throat and slips from her mouth before she can stop herself.

The confusion in his eyes is palpable, he’s staring at her as if she’s finally lost it. His eyes widen in disbelief, the bricks of the dam beginning to slip, as she says, “You don’t need my forgiveness Jackson, I’ve already given it to you.”

His voice is barely a whisper as he says, “I...I thought you’d want nothing to do with me.”

Abby shakes her head, steps closer, and opens her arms. Jackson blinks twice before he falls into her embrace, his arms winding around her back hanging on tightly, his fists bunching in her shirt. She feels the wetness of his cheeks and his shuddering breaths as he fights to suppress his sobs.

“It was A.L.I.E. It’s what she does best: exploiting weaknesses for her cause. That’s how she got to all of us in the end.”

Jackson pulls away and looks at her with a tear stained face. He whispers, “I’m so sorry Abby”

She gives him a weak smile, her hand resting on his shoulder. “It’s already forgiven.”

He nods and returns her smile with the same sentiment, they share a connected gaze.

“I’ll check up on him for you,” he offers. As he turns away, he misses her face falling.

Why is it so much easier to forgive others than it is to forgive yourself? It haunts her as she occupies herself with the patients in medical, she waits for him to return to her, she has to believe he will.

The moment he does all of her tumultuous thoughts are pacified by his immediate presence. There is an undercurrent of uncertainty vibrating between them. She is exhausted, her hands coated with dried blood, her neck aching. She wears the rope burn and the smattering of dark bruises as an unmissable accessory. They haven’t spoken about their relationship but Abby likes to think such a thing is unnecessary — their connection doesn’t require an explanation. She cannot help the magnetism that draws her to him; the desire and urge to be by his side, to return to the way things used to be.

Marcus moves with a sense of tentativeness, his every step carefully measured. His uncertainty pains her. He is distancing himself from her. The words slip from his mouth, his eyes are downcast. They grate against the air as she hears him. He breaches the conversation wondering if perhaps she wants to cool things down between them, after all that has happened. His hesitancy, his caution, while endearing is also terrifying. He doesn’t quite realise just how much she relies on him. Over this short space of time, he has begun to mean everything to her. She’s not letting him go, not like this, not now just because of his misplaced notions of guilt, she’s too stubborn for that.

 She tells him so.

Her voice crumbles from her mouth, “I need you.”

 There is no way in hell she’s going to hold him at arm’s length after everything that has happened, they’ve come too far. She moves in close to him, invading his personal space. Her fingers brush over his wrapped wounds, he bows his head into the crook of her shoulder, shuddering out a relieved sigh. He whispers, “We both have things to atone for, but believe me when I say I need you too.”

She entwines her fingers in his hair, ruffling his locks.

“We’re going to be okay, Marcus,”  she says, desperately wanting to believe it.

They’re quiet, folded in on each other as her hands begin to shake. He lowers them to sit on the surgical table, she burrows herself further into his embrace. She has missed him, missed the comfort he brings to her with the simplicity of his actions, and yet there is still so much to discuss. She begins with the statement that has been secretly eating her up inside, “I killed a man.”

The words seem unreal falling from her lips, he regards her for a moment before jumping to her defense. He whispers hoarsely, his lips brushing her ear, “You had no choice.”

 “I’m a doctor, Marcus, I swore an oath to do no harm, now it seems all I do is harm.”

The confession terrifies her. Her fingers flick over his bandages, a physical affirmation of her reminder. He shakes his head, clearing his throat gruffly. The guilt she feels is obvious, he aches with its knowledge but he does not blame her for it, how can he? Instead he asks, “Do you remember when I came to see you before the execution?”

Of course she remembers, she’d never be able to forget the moment she almost lost him.

 “I didn’t want to be presumptuous about the way you felt, but you made it _so_ clear. I never realised you could feel that way about me, I thought it was too late. I thought I was going to die. I didn’t want to kiss you then, knowing it would be the last taste of you I was ever going to get. If I was going to die, I didn’t want to take your heart with me. I didn’t realise though, that it was already too late for that.”

She doesn’t know why he’s chosen to tell her this, but she needs it now more than ever.

He continues, “That’s why I had to let you know how I felt before I left. I needed you to know Abby, that you _already_ held my heart in your hands. I needed you to know that, in case I never got the chance. I left Abby, _I_ left…” He clutches her tighter and his voice is drenched with agony as he adds, “This is on me Abby, if I hadn’t left—”

She cannot stand it for a moment longer and twists in his embrace. Her hand settles on his cheek, forcing him to look at her, their dark eyes meet. The guilt she finds there makes her heart ache.

“If you had stayed, nothing would have changed, Marcus, you would have been chipped alongside the rest of us.” Her hand trembles on his cheek, he moves his own over it stilling her movement.

“You never explained it to me,” he murmurs. She swallows deeply, fighting the tears attempting to pool in her eyes.

“A.L.I.E. had Raven. I watched as she slit open her own wrists without even flinching,” her voice begins to falter, clogged by the weight of emotion. “I couldn’t just let her bleed out, Marcus.”

He brings their foreheads together, the tears sliding down her cheeks are out of focus.

“I know,” he murmurs hoarsely. She waits for him to speak again, to confide in her the burden that he has been carrying since their return. “When I was hanging on that cross—” Her eyes flicker with the memory of the guilt that he has laid to rest in her. “—the pain was agonising, excruciating even, but tolerable. Nothing was going to make me swallow that chip, _nothing_ I was so sure. I couldn’t do that to you…or to Clarke”

 She waits a moment, he says nothing, simply gnawing on his lower lip.

“But?” She asks.

He exhales, she feels the puff of his breath on her mouth. He confesses, “But then he put a gun to your head and I knew I had never experienced _true_ pain until that moment. The thought of losing you was enough to break me.”

Her fingers find purchase in the scruff of his beard, soothing over his chin. She pleads, “We can’t let her win, Marcus.”

“She won’t,” he affirms as he finally closes the last remaining inches between them, setting his lips over hers in a slow kiss. This time there is no doubt, their embrace is genuine. There is no red dress hovering over their shoulder. This is just them. Alone at last.

 

* * *

 

 

The morning bathes them with light. Everything seems different in its tinge. She watches Marcus as his eyes blink open blearily. He smiles softly at her. He seems rested, she is content with the look of resolve present on his face. Things have shifted since their meeting. He is back to his former self. She slides closer to him in the confines of their bed, his body heat luring her in. They speak to each other in soft tones, their conversation concerns her.

 Marcus relays his own observations of Clarke dissociating herself from everyone around her. Abby wonders if her self-imposed isolation is some form of punishment for the guilt that obviously plagues her. The events of Mount Weather may have been overshadowed by their current threat, but one never really stops being affected by genocide. She doubts Clarke will ever forget the numerous piles of bodies she blistered with radiation, watching as their skin practically melted off their skeletons. Families and children alike, innocents. But then again can anyone truly be innocent in this world that requires what it does for survival?

Somehow, Abby instinctively knows that there’s more to it than that. There is an undercurrent of feeling that swirls in the space between them, it feeds off the rumours she’s heard about the Commander’s death. Abby wishes Clarke would confide in her about whatever it is that bubbles just beneath the surface. She only prays that it does not force her daughter from their camp again. She cannot afford to lose anymore.

She slips further into Marcus’ warm embrace, watching his eyes close again as she rests her head on his bare chest. It isn’t until the hammering starts on their door that they reluctantly move to start the day.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

 

* * *

 

 

 Marcus eventually manages to convince Abby to take a break from the heavy intake of patients in medical. He leads her down to the mess hall, where the majority are having dinner. They’re sitting on the same side of the bench, Marcus has an arm draped lowly across the small of her back, hers rests comfortably on his thigh. He smiles briefly at how they must look, but then realises he doesn’t care — they’ve been through so much together for this trivial amount of affection to matter now.

His eyes run across the expanse of the mess hall, taking in the smatterings of delinquents. Arkadia is eerily quiet after their return, it seems no-one is really sure what to do with the agency that has been returned to them. They are slowly trying to normalise themselves, trying to find forgiveness for the actions that they committed without the soundness of mind, learning to deal with the consequences and the idea of how much of them was behind the atrocities they committed.

Marcus still struggles with the things he’s done and the things he hasn’t done; the fact he wasn’t there to protect Abby, that he didn’t take her with him. Shooting Roan, Miller, and Bryan, and trussing up Indra on the cross, especially when he knows the suffering associated with it. But he has to start bandaging those wounds, he needs to push them back inside himself. This camp needs a leader to reunite them again, to make them feel safe after such a tumultuous crisis and he knows that with Abby and Clarke, they can do it. Clarke at the moment though doesn’t seem like she could lead a lion out of its den.

He’s watched her become more isolated, drawing in on herself and he knows the pain that weighs on her soul, he’s been there before. He catches her eye, she gives him a thinly veiled smile that doesn’t fool him, before returning to run her fork through the mess she’s made on her plate. Marcus squeezes Abby briefly, before drawing away. She looks up at him, confusion in her eyes, he smiles reassuringly at her before murmuring, “There’s something I need to do.”

She lets him go, watching curiously as he approaches Clarke who sits alone at her table. He settles himself down in front of her and she barely acknowledges his presence.

 “Clarke?” He prods her.

 She scrapes the fork across the metal plate as she parrots back, “Kane?”

“Will you come with me? There’s something I want to show you.”

 She looks at him, he can read the doubt and uncertainty in her eyes. He says, “Please, it won’t take long.”

She sighs and nods in affirmation, begrudgingly pushing her plate away and standing up. He watches the fight drain out of her, she’s wearing the same look of exhaustion she’s had since she arrived. He knows there’s something bigger weighing on her, dragging her down, he hopes he can get through to her and help her realise that she’s not alone.

He leads her out of the mess hall, his eyes connecting with Abby’s as he passes. He smiles at her, she mouths a _thank you_.

Clarke regards him warily as he folds his pistol into its holder, sitting at his waist.

“We’re not going far, it’s just a precaution,” he says in a manner he hopes is reassuring. He leads them to the gate, again Clarke is looking at him strangely.

“What could you possibly have to show me out here? Gazing at the stars or the luminous butterflies isn’t going to make a difference, Kane.” She’s tense and uncomfortable, he cannot help but be a little amused.

“Please, just trust me Clarke.” He slips through the gate and waits for her to follow. After weighing her options and reluctantly glancing back towards Arkadia. She murmurs her assent, “Okay, Kane, but if anything happens, you’re the one who has to explain it to mum.” He grins at her and they start walking.

It’s a quiet sort of companionship, a lot has happened between them to be fully comfortable with each other just yet. In all honesty, he isn’t exactly sure how she regards him now, how much of her view is still tainted by the actions he committed on the Ark? Has he redeemed himself in her eyes? Has he become a man worthy of her approval? These thoughts stick with him as his feet trundle on through the undergrowth. Can she see behind the man who, in all good conscious, allowed her father to be floated? He wonders if she could ever forgive that man, but then he too is reminded of the forgiveness she seeks herself. Will it be enough if he can give that to her?

 They push on through the woods. The night is cold around them, though it doesn’t feel dangerous. Too much has happened for them to be afraid of the ground. It’s such a strong contrast to the people they were when they landed; the ignorant, naïve kids that they were back then, it forces a smile on her face.

“Kane?” She murmurs when the futility of this walk prompts her. Are they just going to continue enjoying each other’s company or does he have some destination in mind?

“We’re almost there,” he reassures. She follows him over a small slope and he stops. She glances out in front of them at the scenery, feeling severely disappointed and a tad confused. Had Kane really just led her twenty minutes out of camp to gaze at a bunch of trees? Her frustration wells. Whatever it is that he’s playing at she wants him to stop. He notices her confusion and splays his hand out pointing to one tree in particular.

“It’s a tree,” she says underwhelmed and annoyed.

 “Look closer,” he prompts her and so she does, that’s when she notices it. It’s different than the other trees in the grove, set an unusual distance apart. It’s trunk, branches and leaves are distinctly different and yet somehow familiar. It seems younger and strangely more wholesome than the others. She cannot put her finger on it, she glances to Kane for guidance. He doesn’t say anything but steps closer, kneeling at the base, his pants moulding into the dirt. He reaches his hand out, fingertips skimming over the gnarled bark almost relevantly. It all seems to click into place and, in that moment, she understands.

“The Eden Tree?” She whispers. His fingers pause and he half turns to face her, looking over his shoulder. He nods, a warm smile gracing his face.

“You brought it to the ground and planted it?”

“Yes,” he answers. His expression slips into a frown and Clarke thinks he looks mournful. He clarifies, “It was my mother’s last wish before she died.” Clarke assesses him, but she has nothing to say to that. She’s not sure why Kane would want her to see this, or regale her with stories of his mother’s death. She hardly knew the woman.

 “I’m sorry,” she says, lacking any real empathy. Death is a subject they are both intimately aware of. She has become almost unaffected by its presence. But then again she knows that is not true -- if it were, she would not have fled into the forest, unable to face the guilt and acknowledge the horrific actions she caused for the sake of her people. They were a reminder she was scared she’d always be haunted by.

His lips twitch up at her response and he offers, “She died during the Unity Day bombing.”

His hand has gone back to brushing the gnarled bark, he lets the bag he’s brought with him fall from his shoulder. Clarke watches as he retrieves a clear plastic bottle from its depths. He unscrews it and sprinkles water at the base of the tree. It’s over three months old and it’s flourishing. It has no need for the minuscule amounts of water Marcus shares with it, so she assumes it’s more symbolic than anything. A habitual practice that has stayed with him despite his slight reprieve of faith on the Ark. She stays silent as he murmurs words to it that sound awfully like the Traveler’s Blessing. Clarke imagines a younger Kane, quiet and dutifully fulfilling his role in his mother’s church, tending to the tree that encapsulates all their hopes and dreams of the future. It’s strange to see the finality in that now, where the tree encased in dirt soars just as high as its brothers on the ground. Their dreams have been realised even if his mother isn’t here to see. She understands with startling clarity how important this ritual is to him, as she squeezes the last remnant of her own lost love -- the flame hanging from a thin wire chain sits just above her breast.

She moves to kneel next to him, placing a hand on his wrist as he tilts the bottle towards the earth again. He pauses and she looks at him before taking the bottle away and pouring water over its base herself; it brings a tender smile from Marcus. She asks him what she’s been meaning to since they arrived, “Why did you bring me out here?”

He isn’t looking at her when he replies, “I wanted you to know that we aren’t all that different.”

 She returns a hand to his arm, urging him to look at her. In the depths of his eyes she sees everything that he’s hidden from them: the guilt, the pain, the suffering. She knows it so well, the look is familiar, it echoes out from her own eyes too.

 “You bear it so we don’t have to,” he murmurs.

She nods, she hates the constricted feeling in her throat as she battles to keep the mist from rising in her eyes.

“But you don’t seem to realise Clarke, we already bear it. Every decision we’ve been implicit in, every mistake, every ramification, every consequence, we live with that too. You may have pulled that lever Clarke, but don’t for any second think that I wouldn’t have, had the opportunity arisen. This guilt is not yours alone to bare…” He trails off, Clarke knows there’s something else he isn’t saying. When he speaks again, the words seem to be caught in his throat and he struggles to force them out, she can see it's difficult for him to speak about this. “When they put your mother on the table, I would have done anything to stop it.”

He isn’t looking at her, gazing instead at the knots in the wood. He continues, “I’ve never been more terrified.” The confession shouldn’t surprise her, yet she finds herself so suddenly confronted by the raw emotion of the man in front of her, it’s almost hard to listen. “I tried to reach her, but no amount of struggling would free me from those chains.”

It’s like he’s stuck in that one pivotal moment, replaying it over and over in his head. She wants to reach out and free him from his torment, but she too knows what it’s like to feel so undeniably helpless. Her mind has run through a thousand different scenarios of that moment in the control room, but it always ends the same with her hand on the lever. So she leaves him to his pain, trusts that he has control of it, because it has already consumed her. She watches as the tension retracts from his face and he composes himself.

He concludes, “You saved her, Clarke; _you_ did that. Without you, she would be dead and then where would we all be?”

Clarke regards him for a moment before saying, “That doesn’t wipe the blood from my hands. We massacred innocents, Kane: children, people trying to help us.”

She can feel her heart starting to race, reliving the sheer abhorrence of her actions again. He stretches out and grasps her with both hands, pleading, “Clarke, listen to me. What you did, it was necessary.”

She tries to shake her head, to disagree with him. The faces of the innocents flash in her mind, their skin melting as the radiation she unleashed upon them consumes them whole. She’s shaking and he pulls her into him, his weight providing an anchor for her sorrow. She burrows herself against his chest, trying to escape the memories. He settles his chin against her shoulder, whispering soothingly in her ear, “I know, it’s okay.”

She tries to respond but it’s muffled in his jacket.

“You know the difference between us?” Marcus doesn’t wait for her to respond. “The massacre I initiated -- the 320 people that I killed -- that was avoidable, that was unnecessary.” She stills against his chest, pulling away slightly to look at him. “I sucked the oxygen out of 320 of our peoples’ lungs--" He takes a deep heart wrenching sigh. "All because I thought I was doing the right thing, the only difference here, Clarke, is that you _were_ doing the right thing.”

 She regards him silently unsure how to evaluate the information he's just given her. He continues, meeting her gaze, “You learn to live with the pain, you have to let it motivate you not to make the same mistakes again. Things can be different down here, your mother taught me that, perhaps there are no good guys," he says with a small smile. She’s staring intently into his eyes as he concludes, “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”

She pulls herself from his embrace, a resolve forming in her heart. It’s something she’s known all along, she just needed help to justify the consequences of her actions, even though she knows without them her people would have died. She cannot look at Kane the same again, the burden on his shoulders outweighs them all and yet he carries it as if it weighs nothing. She suspects her mother sees behind that façade, soothes his brokenness when there is no-one around, fitting his pieces back together one by one. She’s suddenly, overwhelmingly pleased that they have each other. She doesn’t know what this burden would have done to him if he hadn’t anyone to confide in.

Her knees touch his as they kneel in proximity to one another. He reaches out, runs a thumb across her cheek wiping the traitorously escaped tears from her eyes. As the hand draws away it brushes a wayward lock back behind her ear. She’s reminded in that moment so startlingly of her father, the way he consoled her when she came home upset about some trivial little thing, the way his kind eyes would seek hers out; his words could resolve any emotion that was welling up inside her. She’s not sure what to do with the realisation. It startles her, so she stores it away to ponder upon later when she’s alone.

“Thank you, Kane,” she says solemnly.

His lips morph into a shallow smile as he replies, “Perhaps you should start calling me Marcus.” 

“We’ll see,” she smirks at him.

He shoves himself to his feet, presenting his hand to Clarke to help her up. With another look at the Eden Tree, he slips the bottle back inside his pack and slides it over his shoulder.

Arkadia appears in front of the cover of trees before them; for the last twenty minutes they’d been walking in a silence that was genuinely comfortable. She weighs up her thoughts on the matter and is thankful that Kane cares enough to guide her through the pain that is so familiar to him. She knows he’s not just doing it because she is her mother’s daughter, he cares for all of them here, that is so prevalent to her everyday as she watches his interactions with the remaining delinquents. She thinks if anyone was going to be chancellor of their people, she wouldn’t trust many but him. He understands the weight of pain and leads through experience. She’s lucky her mum has someone like him to rely on. As they march closer to the gates illuminated in the dark, he leans over and grasps her wrist, stilling her movements. She looks over to him curiously as he says, “You don’t have to be Wanheda here, Clarke is enough for us.”

Her lips quirk into a smile as she slides her hand from his grasp, squeezing his fingers briefly on the way down. “I know.”

Together they re-enter the gates of Arkadia, their footsteps lighter than when they first began. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed that.  
> I can also be found on Tumblr @Thematic-Kane :D


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